The Egoist eBook

“My work was done; I should have been an intruder.
Besides I was acting wet jacket with Mrs. Mountstuart
to get her to drive off fast, or she might have jumped
out in search of her Professor herself.”

“She says you were lean as a fork, with the
wind whistling through the prongs.”

“You see how easy it is to deceive one who is
an artist in phrases. Avoid them, Miss Dale;
they dazzle the penetration of the composer.
That is why people of ability like Mrs Mountstuart
see so little; they are so bent on describing brilliantly.
However, she is kind and charitable at heart.
I have been considering to-night that, to cut this
knot as it is now, Miss Middleton might do worse than
speak straight out to Mrs. Mountstuart. No one
else would have such influence with Willoughby.
The simple fact of Mrs. Mountstuart’s knowing
of it would be almost enough. But courage would
be required for that. Good-night, Miss Dale.”

“Good-night, Mr. Whitford. You pardon me
for disturbing you?”

Vernon pressed her hand reassuringly. He had
but to look at her and review her history to think
his cousin Willoughby punished by just retribution.
Indeed, for any maltreatment of the dear boy Love by
man or by woman, coming under your cognizance, you,
if you be of common soundness, shall behold the retributive
blow struck in your time.

Miss Dale retired thinking how like she and Vernon
were to one another in the toneless condition they
had achieved through sorrow. He succeeded in
masking himself from her, owing to her awe of the
circumstances. She reproached herself for not
having the same devotion to the cold idea of duty
as he had; and though it provoked inquiry, she would
not stop to ask why he had left Miss Middleton a prey
to the sparkling colonel. It seemed a proof of
the philosophy he preached.

As she was passing by young Crossjay’s bedroom
door a face appeared. Sir Willoughby slowly emerged
and presented himself in his full length, beseeching
her to banish alarm.

He said it in a hushed voice, with a face qualified
to create sentiment.

“Are you tired? sleepy?” said he.

She protested that she was not: she intended
to read for an hour.

He begged to have the hour dedicated to him.
“I shall be relieved by conversing with a friend.”

No subterfuge crossed her mind; she thought his midnight
visit to the boy’s bedside a pretty feature
in him; she was full of pity, too; she yielded to
the strange request, feeling that it did not become
“an old woman” to attach importance even
to the public discovery of midnight interviews involving
herself as one, and feeling also that she was being
treated as an old friend in the form of a very old
woman. Her mind was bent on arresting any recurrence
to the project she had so frequently outlined in the
tongue of innuendo, of which, because of her repeated
tremblings under it, she thought him a master.